Snow shutters airport on South Korean resort island Jeju
| Reuters

SEOUL Flights at the airport on the South Korean holiday island of Jeju were halted on Sunday for a second day due to the biggest snowfall in three decades and high winds, forcing hundreds of cancellations, officials said.

The popular vacation spot off the south of the Korean peninsula, recorded its biggest snowfall in 32 years at 11 cm (4.33 inches) as of Sunday, with more than 1 metre of snow in mountain areas.

Many flights were either cancelled or delayed before Jeju airport was shut at 5:45 p.m. (0845 GMT) on Saturday, when all flights were cancelled until 9 a.m. on Monday, the transportation ministry said.

On Saturday, 296 flights were cancelled and 122 delayed. All 517 flights scheduled for Sunday as well as around 60 flights scheduled for Monday morning were cancelled, Korea Airports Corp said.

Roughly 6,000 passengers were stranded at the airport on Saturday, the ministry said, but the number had fallen to 1,500 early on Sunday morning.